ly, that the increase of our expenses put an end to the delay.

But this is the inevitable process of human affairs. Negotiation
requires time, What is not apparent to intuition must be found by
inquiry. Claims that have remained doubtful for ages cannot be settled
in a day. Reciprocal complaints are not easily adjusted, but by
reciprocal compliance. The Spaniards, thinking themselves entitled to
the island, and injured by captain Hunt, in their turn demanded
satisfaction, which was refused; and where is the wonder, if their
concessions were delayed! They may tell us, that an independent nation
is to be influenced not by command, but by persuasion; that, if we
expect our proposals to be received without deliberation, we assume that
sovereignty which they do not grant us; and that if we arm, while they
are deliberating, we must indulge our martial ardour at our own charge.

The English ministry asked all that was reasonable, and enforced all
that they asked. Our national honour is advanced, and our interest, if
any interest we have, is sufficiently secured. There can be none amongst
us, to whom this transaction does not seem happily concluded, but those
who, having fixed their hopes on publick calamities, sat, like vultures,
waiting for a day of carnage. Having worn out all the arts of domestick
sedition, having wearied violence, and exhausted falsehood, they yet
flattered themselves with some assistance from the pride or malice of
Spain; and when they could no longer make the people complain of
grievances, which they did not feel, they had the comfort yet of
knowing, that real evils were possible, and their resolution is well
known of charging all evil on their governours.

The reconciliation was, therefore, considered as the loss of their last
anchor; and received not only with the fretfulness of disappointment,
but the rage of desperation. When they found that all were happy, in
spite of their machinations, and the soft effulgence of peace shone out
upon the nation, they felt no motion but that of sullen envy; they could
not, like Milton's prince of hell, abstract themselves a moment from
their evil; as they have not the wit of Satan, they have not his virtue;
they tried, once again, what could be done by sophistry without art, and
confidence without credit. They represented their sovereign as
dishonoured, and their country as betrayed, or, in their fiercer
paroxysms of fury, reviled their sovereign as betraying it.